laura_seabrook | Moving Lips

Thinking about Captain Pugwash makes me think of another series of cartoons I used to watch as a child. There were three of them, all using the same technique: Clutch Cargo, Space Angel and Captain Fathom. According to the Wikipedia, what all these had in common was a process called "Syncro-Vox", a form of optical printing that mixed still images with animated ones.

The big thing that I remember about these was the way the lips moved! You can see an example in the Youtube clip below:

As you can see, the lips move, but look like they aren't actually attached to any muscles! My favourite was Captain Fathom in which the technique seemed to reach its zenith. There's an episode of this on Youtube as well, but if you want to avoid the deliberately stupid "cartoon dump" intro, start watching at 4:27.

It's strange - if you wait long enough you can find anything on Youtube.